The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) should have the power to issue custodial sentences for breaches of the Data Protection Act, going further than its current powers of issuing fines to organisations which breach the act, Parliament's justice committee has said.
In a report titled Referral fees and the theft of personal …

COMMENTS

No dental work for Fido

MPs may back more powers, but business won't, so after a suitable mount of lobbying, wheedling and corporate donations to the party a fact finding committee will hide all the real facts, conjure up a few fakes and eventually conclude there's no need for more 'onerous' regulations.

'no longer a "toothless bulldog" '

Does it even use it's current powers?

I've had the misfortune to deal with the ICO, it's slow, ineffective and even if it does rule in your favour it's response is often along the lines "well, they've broken the law but we're not going to do anything about it".

The ICO is not fit for purpose - giving extra powers to an organisation that seems incapable of using the powers it already has seems to be pointless.

It's quicker and easier to sue through the small claims court - perhaps we should dissolve the ICO and allow people to take legal action using the existing court system?

Latest update.... they're still toothless!

I can confirm that the ICO is still toothless. My bank has now failed twice to comply with my section 11 request to cease processing my personal data for diect marketing purposes but they have refused to take action. After the first failure to comply the ICO wrote to my bank and told them what they needed to do to comply but they've simply ignore them.

The reason why data protection in this country is so bad is because the ICO focuses on easy wins. If it's a government organisation they're all over them because they know that they will have to comply, but if they actually have to argue the law with a bank's lawyers then they go weak at the knees.

Failure to comply with a section 11 notice twice and they're still refusing to take action. Someone somewhere is giving a misleading account of the ICO.